Synopsis

Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and Scooby take jobs as extras on the movie set of The Ape Man of Forbidden Mountain, directed by Daphne's uncle, John Maxwell. Uncle John states that filming has not been going well, considering local legends say that a real apeman is haunting the grounds. During filming, the lead role, Candy Mint gets attacked by a real Ape Man who tries to throw her off of a narrow bridge. Scooby comes in and saves Candy and then after settling down, they decide to go look for the stuntman Carl, who was supposed to be playing as the Ape Man. They find Carl locked in a trunk and he says a large hairy animal locked him in there.

Candy and Carl quit until the Ape Man is caught—Daphne and the rest of the gang offer to help her uncle find out what's really going on, and John lets them do so, but only on the condition that they be careful in their investigating. The first place Mystery Inc. look in is an old mansion for the Ape Man. The first thing they find is a half-eaten hamburger. When Daphne points out that gorillas don't eat meat, the gang takes this as their first clue. Later on the set, the gang encounters a live parrot that says "Stick 'em up! What's the password?" Then a motionless Ape Man model is hurled toward Shaggy, whom demolishes it in the struggle, only stopping his panic attack once he realizes it's only a stuffed dummy.

Later in the library set, Freddy winds up falling through a trapdoor (thanks to Daphne), and then the Ape Man disguises as Scooby-Doo to encounter the real Scooby at a phony "mirror." Once unmasked, Scooby manages to ward off the Ape Man, but only temporarily, before finding Freddy and the gang set up a trap. Shaggy and Scooby are sent out as bait (thanks to some Scooby Snacks and a "Shaggy Snack" made exclusively for Shaggy), and when playing billiards they discover the Ape Man posing as a hunting trophy head. They manage to lure the ape to the trap, but it backfires, with Shaggy being caught instead. So, the ape runs off into the basement and the gang follows him through a secret cave that leads back to the dressing rooms. Shaggy and Scooby enter a trailer, and Shaggy finds an old-timey camera.

They play around with masks and other costume parts, until the Ape Man enters without his mask, and Shaggy snaps a picture before fleeing. The two run into the rest of the gang, and before Shaggy can reveal the picture, the Ape Man chases them back to the old mansion and upstairs. Freddy flips a switch, where the stairs convert to a ramp, sending the Ape Man sliding and crashing into a pile of furniture. The picture Shaggy took reveals Carl the stuntman as the apeman.

Sometime later, Daphne's Uncle John explains that Carl was angry for not being cast as the movie's male lead. He thanks the gang for helping him, but Velma says that most of the credit should go to Shaggy, since he was the one to find out who the culprit was. But where's he got to? They find Scooby and Shaggy having some more disguise fun; Scooby in the Ape Man's head, and Shaggy wearing the Scooby-Doo mask from earlier.

The Ape Man wearing a Scooby mask, while pretending to be the latter's reflection, is a reference to the phony mirror gag made famous in the Marx Brothers' short film, Duck Soup.

On Cartoon Network and Boomerang's airings of this episode, the 1994 Hanna-Barbera "All-Stars Action" logo at the end instead uses the soundtrack from the "All-Stars Comedy" variant of the logo, most likely due to an editing mistake.

Adaptations

While the events of the situation aren't clear, the montage sequence before the end of the closing credits to the live-action telefilm, Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins, did have Fred fall backwards in a library.

Animation mistakes and/or technical glitches

In the first shot with Velma, her lenses are missing.

When Mr. Maxwell's replies to Scooby's shock of seeing the Ape Man mask, he's against a trailer as if he's outside when they're actually inside Carl's trailer.

When Velma thinks it's Shaggy trying to scare her and Scooby by saying "Stick 'em up! What's the password?", her sclera have almost disappeared and her pupils are very faint.

When Shaggy asks "Yeah, but how are you gonna get the Ape Man down in the basement?" the frame is not centered; the top edge of the animation cel can be seen near the top of the image, and Shaggy and Scooby are shifted more towards the bottom.

When Fred pushed a button to flatten the steps, he didn't push a button at all, and his hand was in a different area to the button Daphne pressed earlier in the episode.

Inconsistencies/continuity errors and/or goofs/oddities

John Maxwell is only either called Uncle John or Mr. Maxwell, but the assistant director refers to him as J.J. It's unknown what the second "J" is supposed to stand for, presumably it would at least be the first initial of his middle name.

If a real mountain bridge was being used instead of a set then, logically, a stunt person should have taken the place of Candy.

The force of the Ape Man vigorously trying to shake Candy off of the bridge should have surely sent her falling off as she wasn't holding onto anything. Even though her reactions are close-up, she doesn't seem to even wobble. Perhaps the shaking of the screen was supposed to emulate that.

Though Carl, as the Ape Man, falls off the cliff, he is unhurt.

Scooby bounces straight up and down near the far cliff face, but on his last bounce, he somehow ends up next to the near cliff face.

Epi-Center Film Company was already implied to be the film's production company, but Starbright Films appears on a board outside the mansion set. They possibly could be providing the sets, including the mansion, at the very least.

Shaggy tries to open the door while holding it closed with his foot.

If the parrot is indeed a trained animal in the film (as opposed to someone just seemingly leaving it there for no apparent reason) then what it's saying may be its line in the film, although this is not revealed.

Why would the film crew leave a live parrot on the set after they had quit working on the movie? Hopefully someone remembered to feed it.

It's unknown if Scooby got that bonus snack.

When Velma was prepared to pull down the trap switch, it was the middle one. After Scooby got off her, she reached for the middle one again, but it was the light switch. Furthermore, Fred said he would shine a spotlight on the Ape Man to stun him, but the room is pitch black when Velma hits the switch and turns the light off.

Where did Carl get a rubber Scooby-Doo mask? It is likely he may have had it made by a professional make-up artist on the set, but creating a latex mask can take quite a while (sometimes a few days.)

When Shaggy and Scooby are playing pool, the 6 ball appears in two different locations on the table without being touched.

Upon seeing a hamburger eaten with claw marks, and therefore concluding that the Ape Man eats meat, Daphne remarks that apes don't eat meat, and therefore a clue. However, in the wild, apes (chimpanzees in particular), do eat meat, such as small animals or even monkeys. The logical explanation is that during the same time as the production period, Jane Goodall had not observed apes eating meat yet.

Scooby-Doo! Stage Fright DVD released by Warner Home Video on August 20, 2013.

Quotes

John Maxwell: We've had three reports that the Ape Man has been seen up here at night.Fred: They've seen a real ape man?Scooby: Real ape man? (gulps)Shaggy: (looks at his wrist watch) I just remembered a dental appointment back in town.